Summary

  • ComReg proposes testing Eircom’s FTTP VUA backhaul contracts as a whole, including Bitstream, White Label and bespoke arrangements, rather than relying on a product-by-product wholesale test.
  • Prior approval would apply only when a deal exceeds 5% of contestable demand, lasts more than three years and prices backhaul below the LRIC benchmark. The proposal remains open for consultation until 17:00 on 23 October 2026.

Analysis

A posted Bitstream price cannot describe every fibre wholesale deal. An internet provider may buy access and backhaul together, negotiate a bespoke transmission package, or combine regulated facilities with other services. If the margin test looks at only one line on the price list, it can miss where the effective price sits across the contract.

That is the problem ComReg is trying to address in its consultation and draft decision, ComReg 26/63. The regulator proposes to assess a contract or arrangement between Eircom and a retail service provider as an aggregate portfolio of FTTP VUA speed profiles. The scope would include Bitstream and White Label services, bespoke backhaul and relevant associated facilities. Some bundled services outside the regulated wholesale layer could also count when they are conditional on, or materially affect, the backhaul price.

The proposal follows a change in the regulatory setting. ComReg’s 2024 market decision designated Eircom as having significant market power in the Commercial Next Generation Wholesale Local Access market and required it not to squeeze the margin between FTTP-based Virtual Unbundled Access (VUA) and downstream FTTP services. The decision kept a retail FTTP margin test but did not retain a separate ex-ante wholesale test for every product. ComReg said it would monitor market developments.

Its new draft points to a shift in Eircom’s wholesale mix. From the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, Bitstream grew by about 50,000 lines while standalone VUA fell by about 70,000. Those trends partly reversed in the following year; by the first quarter of 2026, Bitstream still represented 56% of Eircom’s wholesale-only base, against 48% two years earlier. ComReg also estimates that Eircom backhauled traffic associated with 22% of fixed-broadband lines in early 2026, up from 16% in early 2024. Its estimate puts Eircom above two-thirds of contestable backhaul traffic, compared with less than half two years earlier.

These are estimates built from reported data, assumptions and information sought from providers; ComReg says it does not systematically collect every backhaul arrangement.

For the proposed test, the regulator would use an equally efficient operator benchmark and long-run incremental cost plus common costs (LRIC+). The relevant backhaul cost base would reflect total fixed-broadband traffic carried over Eircom’s transmission network, rather than only the traffic of one contract. The test would account for the regulated VUA input, eligible discounts, contract-specific delivery costs and the arrangement’s nominal term through a discounted cash-flow model. ComReg argues that this better reflects the economics of a bespoke deal; it also acknowledges the modelling and forecasting burden.

The proposed intervention threshold has three cumulative parts: more than 5% of contestable backhaul demand at some point in the deal, a term longer than three years, and a monthly per-line price below the LRIC benchmark used in Eircom’s retail FTTP submissions. ComReg calculates the contestable base by excluding Eircom and Virgin Media Ireland, which it treats as primarily self-supplying. Using fourth-quarter 2025 figures, that denominator is 920,156 lines, or 52% of all fixed-broadband lines.

A contract meeting all three tests could not take effect before ComReg approved it. A deal meeting the volume and duration tests but not the price test would instead be notified within 30 days after it was concluded, without a pause on implementation; the underlying no-squeeze obligation would still apply. The proposed review would take six weeks, with a possible pause for more information and a two-week extension. ComReg invites views on both the pricing principles and this oversight design before it issues a final decision.

Sources